Played Applebrook yesterday with Lynn Shackelford (Geoff's Dad), Jeff Kiddie (head pro, recently from PVGC) and Gil Hanse.
Applebrook has been open for play for about a month. Like almost all Philly area courses Applebrook is going through their fall maintenance schedule at the moment but the course appeared extremely represntative despite that.
I feel there is lots and lots to report about Applebrook. Firstly it's a large departure from Gil's other area course Inniscrone in many and interesting ways.
The site itself is vastly different to start with and the Applebrook site is quite different from almost every other course in this area. The raw land itself was a unique evolution. Originally probably a 200+ acre Pennsylvania farm with obviously lots of history. In the last 25 years the site was owned by Smith Kline Beecham as a animal research center and at some point in the last 25 years the site was landscaped with a number of enormous flat building pads for buildings that were never built. For many years the building pads gave this quite beautiful farmland an almost eerie manufactured look. It was also interesting to speculate how or if Gil might use those building pads in his routing or design!
Applebrook's site was the second choice for the club and its principals and the combination of entities that inspired this course is interesting too. Some limited residential development starting it off plus a conservation easment aegis (brilliant move), as well as an entity of the local township or local board of commerce, I believe.
Residential development went in first, a number of attached housing (and very expensive) and about 11 really expensive detached houses on the southeast corner of the course.
The first impression of the course is it's openness basically exposing most of the holes to view from most vantages of the course. It should be added that this openness extends well beyond the course and therefore gives and will give the course the full benefit of the unfettered (untree blocked) wind. This I believe will be one of the ongoing benefits to Applebrook. It is important to note that a golf course that has few trees often does not get the full benefit of the wind due to sometimes quite distant tree blocks! A good example of this might be the plain of GCGC that has many of its interior trees removed now but the tree blocking effect of the surrounding property's large trees will never give GCGC the full force and directional strength of the wind that Applebrook will have. Ultimately this may be the X factor that will give the design/architecture of Applebrook its teeth and interest and variety!
Inniscrone has been discussed on this website at length but not many of the drawbacks of that site have been, including environmnental restrictions, a certain disconnection of the routing due to residential considerations taking priority and basic local permitting entities tampering with the design for one reason or another. Gil is apparently too nice to ever mention such things but I don't feel that I need to hold back on any of those facts.
In any case, Applebrook did not have such problems and apparently golf planning, routing and design was given first priority and I believe that fact shows through, as it is generally bound to.
We spent about 20 minutes talking with Jarred Viarengo, the super, before going out. He is extremely competent, calm, commonsensical and very much on top of everything and that shows on the course too. Applebrook is lucky to have him and it appears to be an excellent architect/super combo! More on that later.
I'd watched Applebrook under construction from the beginning since I live about 5 miles from it and I must say I never really got or understood the basic theme or intent of the design until yesterday. The basic design intent, I believe, is quite different from much of what we see in new construction today and is probably another good example of how Hanse design has gone out on a limb and taken some chances that could be misunderstood but ultimately should be a great new (or renaissance) offering that hopefully will add to the education and enjoyment of modern golfers with golf architecture!
How did Hanse Design go out on a limb here with a design intent that may be misunderstood? Basically with only about 4-5 exceptions they have created driving areas and space (width) that is incredible open, accomodating and unpenal. With only one exception (#14) there are no real forced carries on any of the par 4s and par 5s on the drives. There are a couple on these holes on other shots and frankly the variety (and demand) of them is brilliant.
But the openness and the accomodation of much of the driving areas of the par 4s and par 5s is already being misunderstood as far as what I've heard. The result of this misunderstanding is far too many golfers are thinking because they aren't really getting in trouble off the tees that the course must be too easy!
Anything but, because the course, I think, is basically a second shot or approach shot golf course. And even that has a certain amount of deceptive simplicity to it. But the apparent simplicity of the approach shots or second shots has a ton of sophistication to it that the members are soon to learn. And to make that aspect of the course and the design really shine, Jarred Viarengo is going to have to keep that course very firm and fast and the green speeds at a level that will really challenge the golfer and keep the ball moving well with everything that has been designed in for that purpose. That, I think will be the key to Applebrook and is basically that old "maintenance meld" we talk about.
The greens (their fantastic internal contours, slopes, orientations and shapes), the approaches, the numerous and sometimes enoromous close cut chipping areas are what most of the course is all about. Applebrook, I believe, will be a course that's strategies and design intent will emanate from the greens and their surrounds backwards through the holes as well as any course around! In this way the course should play basically to Ross's career theme of ratcheting up the difficulty slowly through the hole as the golfer progresses. Because of the width in the drive areas Applebrook may also be a bit of the theme of Augusta too (or at least what it was once and was supposed to be).
The par 4s and 5s, as mentioned have unusual accomodation off the tees but interestingly none of the par 3s do and this too is a bit of a different design offering! Other than maybe #15 the golfer basically has to hit the par 3 greens or an area that is the designed spot to miss or he will have a problem.
The bunkering at Applebrook is about as good as it gets today in its rugged beauty and in placement, varied sizes, shapes and the hand-worked detail of the surrounds. Hanse, Doak and Coore and Crenshaw are so far out in front of anyone else I've seen in this part of design it's amazing. Not to say some others aren't doing this kind of brilliant bunker work--I just haven't seen it yet.
Another unusual feature of Applebrook is the multiple melded green to chipping areas into tees all over the course. I just love this kind of thing and it's everywhere. Talk about a seemless flow--this is it in spades. The green to tee commutes are very close and cozy too where they can be--just like in the old days!
There are tons more things to say about Applebrook both generally and in detail but this is long and it's enough for now!